Glacial fingers crawl over my skin at his words. I don’t want him digging around in the past. I want to forget what happened. I don’t want to relive that nightmare.

“I’ve got nothing to hide. It happened. I left. End of story.”

He doesn’t let it go, as I expect. If anything, he becomes more persistent. “I know you, Sash. And I know him. He’s lying out of his arse, but you’re lying too. I want to know why.”

“I thought he told you what happened,” I sneer at him, squirming internally at where this conversation is heading.

“Yeah, well, I’m asking you.” He huffs out a breath as his eyes lock on mine. “If something happened, we need to know.”

Cold swamps me at his words and I lean forwards on the bench, clasping my hands in my lap in an attempt to hide they’re trembling. I don’t want to go down this path, not with my child struggling in a hospital bed. All I want to focus on is Lily-May. I can’t deal with this, too. I can’t deal with being so close to the club, with seeing Rav and the brothers. Seeing Sin. I thought I could, but I was wrong.

My walls are fracturing at the look in his eyes. The stress of dealing with Lily being so sick, of dealing with Rav and facing Sin, of having someone probing at my defences is making me weaker. It’s too fucking much. I’m strong, but even the strongest person can break under the right pressure. Hard words I can take. Rav’s hatred, I can handle, because I hate me too. Sin lying I can deal with because it lets me hide under the blanket of denial, but Nox looking at me with softness swirling behind the stone cold glare is what finally breaks me.

A lone tear streaks down my cheek.

“Just leave it alone, Nox, okay?”

“No, not okay. Where did it happen? How did it happen?”

“I don’t remember.”

I do remember. I remember every fucking detail of that night. It’s branded into my soul.

“You don’t remember fucking your old man’s brother?”

I don’t answer as a flashback from that night dances in front of me. The sounds he made as he pumped into me, the way he held my wrists down as he took what wasn’t his to take. I’m going to splinter into a thousand pieces if Nox keeps this up.

“How did you end up shagging? Tell me,” he interrupts my thoughts and my defences shatter like a mirror.

My breath hitches. “It wasn’t—”

“Did you seduce him first? Was it dark, like he said?”

“Yes,” I gasp. The room had been pitch-black. There were no lights on, which made everything else heightened. I remember the sound of his breath, his belt dropping, the taste of my salty tears.

I’m struggling to breathe as more memories flood me.

“Did he make the first move?”

“Stop! Please… stop!” I fist my hands over my ears, trying to block his words out.

“You didn’t fuck him, did you?” He pauses and it feels like the world takes a breath before he says, “He raped you.”

My whole body jolts at his words. Pain lances through my chest as my skin crawls. The dirt I’ve tried so hard to wash away for years is suddenly covering me and I can’t hide it any longer.

Another tear falls, then another.

“Nox, please. I’m begging you.”

“Sash, he raped you, didn’t he?” he presses, ignoring my pleas. “That’s why you can’t stand the sight of him. That’s why you ran. I fucking knew something was going on. You were the most loyal woman. There’s no way in hell you’d willingly fuck Sin, and you’d never leave Rav unless you didn’t have a choice.”

I surge to my feet and he follows me up, all six-foot-three of him towering over my smaller frame. Without thought, I shove at his chest hard, but he doesn’t move an inch. Then I scream in his face, “I told you to leave it alone!”

He takes this without a word, before his face contorts into a mask of rage that has my stomach twisting. I see the anger burning in his eyes as he takes me in and for the first time, I feel fear.

“I’m going to gut him.”

My brows draw together as realisation dawns, as Sin’s lies fall apart. He told me no one would listen. He told me no one would care. He told me no one would ever believe a filthy slut like me, but Nox is here, spitting fire and standing in my corner.

Disbelief makes my words come out breathy as I peer up at him through watery eyes. “You believe me?”

“Yeah, I believe you.” He tears a hand over the scruff of hair covering his head and roars a, “Fuck!” into the air.

My arms wrap around my middle as I watch him unravel, my breath dragging out of me in heavy pants as more tears threaten to fall. He steps towards me and wraps his thick arms around me, squeezing me until my ribs hurt.

“That fucking cunt is dead,” he whispers against my hair. It’s not a threat. I know Nox can fulfil that promise and fear swamps me.

I shake my head. “You can’t tell anyone else. Promise me.”

He pulls back and glares at me with disbelief. “No fucking way am I promising that.”

I grab at his arm and shake him. “Please.”

His jaw tightens and his eyes blaze. I step back a little. “He has to pay. He never had the right to do that. Not to you. Fuck, Sash, never to you. He signed his own death when he put his hands on something that didn’t belong to him.”

He grabs my face, using his thumb to wipe away a few stray tears.

“You might have belonged to Rav, but you belonged to the club too. We all loved you. You were family. And no fucker messes with family, even that bastard.”

I shake my head, trying to clear the blood pounding in my ears. “Just because you believe me doesn’t mean anyone else will. Rav’s never going to believe his little brother…” I break off, unable to say the words that make me feel unclean. I lick my lips. “No one will believe me over Sin.”

His brows knit together. “Is that what he told you? Is that the shit he made you believe?” Nox paces in front of me, his steps sharp. The anger rolling off him is barely contained.

Desperation dogs my steps now. This can’t come out. No one can know my dirty secret.

“He was right. Look at what’s happened since I’ve been back. No one doubted him! It was me they all called a fucking slut, a fucking whore! It’s me Rav hates! They all believe him!”

“I believe you, and no one believed Sin’s bullshit story.” He clenches his jaw and mutters another, “Fuck!” before his eyes come back to me. “He’s why you left. He’s why you don’t know who the father of your kid is.”

I feel laid bare to him, naked, and I don’t like it. I want to build my walls back up and protect myself, but the bricks are gone and there’s no way to fix this. Now that this secret is out there, there’s no hiding it. Shame crawls over me. I close my eyes, the only thing I can do to block this out.

“Rav needs to know.”

My eyes pop open as panic attacks me.

“No.”

“Yeah, Sash. He deserves to know why you walked out.”

“No matter the reason, I still left him. I still turned my back on him. Do you think this will change that fact? He hates me. Why make it worse?”